Obama is Running For ’12: But Is He Ripping Off Romney?

President Barack Obama released a new video Monday morning, announcing his plans to seek re-election in 2012. But some backers of Mitt Romneyare already arguing the campaign’s new slogan, “It Begins With Us”, was copied from a Mitt Romney line from 2008, “Change Begins With Us.”

Clearly, the videos are very different (Romney’s ad features him, while Obama does not appear in his ad), but the question here is regarding the slogans.

Let’s be honest — politicians “borrow” ideas from each other all the time. There’s nothing new under the sun. And it certainly isn’t clear that Obama “stole” this idea from Romney — it very well could be that both teams had the same idea.

Having said that, Obama has a history of blatantly borrowing from other politicians. In 2008, the Hillary Clinton campaign accused Obama of plagiarizing a Gov. Deval Patrick (Massachusetts) speech. More recently, the theme of his 2011 State of The Union was “Winning The Future,” a slogan which had previously been the title of a Newt Gingrich book.